


Men

by saintsrow2



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, No Plot/Plotless, not smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 00:23:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14965068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsrow2/pseuds/saintsrow2
Summary: Once Jacob Frye realises he likes men, it's just a case of finding the kind of men he likes. A freeform fic exploring a few encounters Jacob has in the time after the end of Syndicate.





	Men

**Author's Note:**

> As a gay dude myself I got pretty taken by the confirmation that Jacob is bisexual and wanted to write something just... Looking into the possible relationships he might have had.

The first man Jacob sleeps with is a Rook. His name is William. He is stocky, wears glasses, and can drink Jacob under the table, and does so the first time they meet, the two of them drinking until the early hours of the morning, other Rooks slowly giving up and peeling off as the night goes on. They end the session with Jacob passing out on the floor of the pub, waking up the next morning with a headache that feels like he’s been kicked in the head by a horse.  

The next time Jacob and William see each other, they take the drinking much more slowly, spend the evening playing card games. They sit on opposite sides of the table, with a crush of people all around them making the air hot and stinking with the smell of a hundred strange bodies. Jacob’s knee slips between William’s thighs. He is being as forward as possible, pushing through a burn of embarrassment, and William seems to enjoy it.

They have sex in William’s room in the house he shares, on the rough straw mattress. Jacob couldn’t imagine bringing this back to the train where he sleeps most nights, even if he could be sure Evie wasn’t there. The unfamiliarity of William’s home seems appropriate, for how strange this all feels. Because as eager as Jacob is, this _does_ feel strange. He thought at first that it might not be that different from lying with a woman, but it is, in some way that Jacob can’t quite explain. It’s different from the moment that William kissed him, and it never stops feeling new, and strange. And at the same time, it’s fairly wonderful.

He feels awkward, because this is his first time with a man, and he doesn’t know what to do. He’s thought about it, he’s spent a long time thinking about what it would be like, but with William now it’s like he’s a seventeen-year-old virgin again, fumbling around with a girl in back of a tavern and making a fool of himself. William doesn’t seem to mind. He takes the lead, fucks Jacob slow, leaves him knowing this isn’t going to be the last time.

William and Jacob sleep together twice more, but then William tells Jacob he’s getting married in two months and doesn’t want to go into his wedding vows breaking them already. The two of them split amicably, drift apart without much fuss. If they see each other again in the future, Jacob doesn’t really notice.

 

The next man is a young foppish guy who sees Jacob in a pub near King’s College and latches onto him immediately. He brings Jacob into his circle of friends, introducing him to a round table of rich, pretty young men, wears Jacob on his arm like an accessory. The pub is a grander kind of pub than the ones Jacob typically spends his time in, and he looks absurdly out of place in the worn clothes he ended up wearing that day. At first being treated as a novelty is amusing, but the shine of it wears off quickly. Victor’s friends all joke about how Victor likes _rough things_ , and then Victor takes Jacob back to his university dorm and rides him like a show pony, and at the end of it, Jacob mostly feels used.

The sex was okay, but Jacob decides he doesn’t like Victor very much. Victor is going to be a doctor and talks disparagingly about the poor, and while the former is fine the latter leaves Jacob with a sour taste in his mouth, especially combined with the way Victor fawns over him. He ends up sleeping with a girl called Isabella that Victor is friends with, and while Jacob likes her rather a lot more than he liked Victor, he decides he doesn’t really want to be friends with any of these people. Jacob goes out of his way to avoid that pub for a while.

 

The less said about Richard the better. Jacob ends up sprinting down the street half-dressed with the police on his heels. He decides to stay away from people with wives.

 

Joshua Kauffman makes Jacob laugh so hard beer comes through his nose, which is more painful that Jacob would have guessed. He’s older, in his fifties, but energetic in a way that makes keeping up with him a lot of work. He darts around the city like a man possessed most days; seeing him is something that has to be pencilled into his ledger, but Jacob enjoys the times they have together. They have extremely animated discussions about everything from beer to plays to the weather. Jacob feels like they spend half their time embroiled in arguments.

Joshua tells Jacob he loves him one night, but Jacob doesn’t take it seriously. It was a heat of the moment, passion thing. People will say a lot of things in bed or to get in bed, Jacob knows that much. The next time he says it is in the middle of the day, a week or so later, when Jacob makes him laugh hard enough to choke. Hearing it makes an enormous pit open up in Jacob’s stomach. He just smiles that time. He doesn’t show up to their next arranged date.

When Joshua reschedules, Jacob goes and the two of them have a good time having dinner. It’s saved a little by some of Joshua’s friends unexpectedly showing up. Jacob feels less tense when he knows they’re not alone.

He stops turning up to dates and ignores the letters Joshua writes. He tells himself not to feel bad. Joshua probably has something else to do anyway.

 

Nicholas Croft is going grey in his thirties, and has a calm, genteel manner that Jacob finds endearing. He responds to Jacob’s humour with a dry sarcasm and takes him on long walks by the river to talk about poetry Jacob has never heard of, but still finds fascinating. One day he arranges a carriage, and the two of them head out to the country to picnic and breathe some fresh air outside of the city’s smog. They end up wrestling in the grass like school children, a fight Jacob could have won with ease but ends up conceding to Nicholas because he likes the way it makes Nicholas laugh. They wade ankle deep into a stream, and Jacob slips on rock and ends up soaking his trousers. The sunset is pink and orange as they ride back to the city, and Jacob doesn’t mind when Nicolas falls asleep against his shoulder, even when he drools a little.

Nicholas eats up Jacob’s summer. He even introduces him to Evie and is unsurprised but still pleased when they get along like a house on fire. The three of them have lunch in the hotel Nicholas lives in, eat delicate little sandwiches and drink tea. Jacob catches himself acting up his own clumsiness with the food and questions, internally, why he is so concerned with making Nicholas laugh at him. He forces himself to relax, and just enjoy the time he spends with them both.

The summer is never that sunny or warm in London; Nicholas speaks wistfully of the summers he spent in Italy as a child and expresses a desire to go back. He talks about Paris, too. They lie in bed, still wearing nothing but each other’s sweat, and Nicholas tells him about the beauty of the city neither of them have visited. Nicholas says that he would only want to go if he had someone to go with, and Jacob has a vision then, painfully clear, of getting on a boat with him and sailing all the way across the Channel. It would be so easy to arrange the whole thing. It is also completely impossible – even though the impulsive urge to take action grips him, Jacob knows he has another responsibility. He always will. Nicholas finds something about this magnetic in a way Jacob doesn’t really understand.

It’s never exclusive, it never becomes something that Jacob can bring himself to call a relationship, but he thinks there are many reasons for that. He also thinks that he is not willing to think much more about those reasons than is necessary, focuses on enjoying himself. That is what he wants more than anything else, he assures himself. A little hedonism. It’s comforting to believe that’s all he wants.

After a little over two months, Nicholas falls ill. One day, Jacob shows up at his rooms bearing a picnic lunch he thinks might brighten their spirits, and the door is answered by a severe-looking woman in her sixties. She introduces herself as Nicholas’ mother. He introduces himself as Nicholas’ friend. She tells him that that cannot possibly be true and shuts the door in his face. No one answers the door the next time he knocks. When Jacob tries to return the next day, he finds that Nicholas is no longer staying at the hotel and manages to eke out of the manager that Mr Croft has returned to his family home.

In a year’s time, Jacob will see Nicholas again, looking so much like he did the summer they spent together that it shakes him. After a moment’s hesitation, Jacob will leave the theatre they are both in without stopping to speak to Nicholas.

 

After the summer, Jacob decides he’s going to have fun or go bust. Getting involved is always a mistake – Father knew that much – so he stays deliberately distant. He has more important things to do, anyway. He sees a few people, sleeps with a few others. Gets bored quickly. Stops having fun very quickly but doesn’t realise he’s not enjoying himself for a while. Argues with Evie about responsibility too frequently for his own liking. Realises this isn’t working.

 

Jacob accidentally knocks Winston into the Thames and then has to save him, pulling him out of the water to the safety of the docks. Winston knocks Jacob’s hat off into the river and the two of them nearly come to blows, some Rooks even jeering at them from the street. In the end, Winston forgives Jacob, although he does call him some pointedly rude names, which Jacob thinks is fair. Jacob promises to buy him a beer, and Winston tells him he better not fucking catch him in the local, or there’ll be trouble.

Jacob brings Winston a bottle of beer while he’s working on the docks instead, and Winston is too surprised to be angry. They sit on the wall and drink, and talk. Winston is younger than Jacob and tells him about wanting to join the navy. He doesn’t have a good reason for why he hasn’t yet. Working on the docks is getting boring, but he thinks he might miss his family. Jacob talks a little about his family. Winston thinks it’s incredibly funny that Evie is nothing like him, says she’s definitely the better twin. Jacob is inclined to agree.

He drops by the docks occasionally. Sometimes he brings beer. Winston invites him to the local one day, and Jacob agrees. At first, he thinks about not going. It would probably be easier not to bother. But he ends up trudging through the growing piles of leaves that line the streets now that Autumn is rolling in, and meeting Winston in a grubby little pub that serves food that ends up making Jacob violently ill the following day. He blames Winston for this, and Winston says that it’s payback.

Jacob isn’t sure at first that Winston likes him, but they kiss for the first time with a franticness that makes him think that Winston has maybe been waiting for this for some time. They can’t go back to the house Winston shares with his parents and siblings, so Jacob ends up paying for a room in an inn. He doesn’t mind.

 Winston can play the fiddle, and tries to show Jacob how, but he can’t make the strings sing the same way Winston can. He loves to dance and insists that if Jacob is going to be any friend of his, he’s going to have to dance too. Jacob does, sometimes, though it takes a few drinks. He tells Winston about dancing like a chicken after being hypnotised, but Winston doesn’t believe him.

Joining the Navy seems inevitable. Jacob knows Winston is working up to it when they first meet, and it doesn’t surprise him when Winston asks for his opinion one day. Jacob tells him that he has to do what feels right. He feels a little embarrassed when Winston cries, but finds himself getting a little misty-eyed the day before Winston ships out. He finds himself wishing that Winston could have stayed for New Years – Jacob does so love fireworks.

They will exchange letters for years, mostly just as friends. Less frequently as they get older, but they both appreciate the distant presence of the other in their own lives.

 

Jacob meets Oliver in the spring. He’s obsessed with the theatre, is desperate to be a writer himself – he refers to himself as a _lowly journalist,_ which apparently isn’t a real writer. He promises he will show Jacob some of his work one day but is too nervous now. Oliver has a habit of getting incredibly flustered, and Jacob enjoys pushing his buttons. It’s cute when he gets so worked up that he starts stammering. Evie scolds Jacob for teasing Oliver too much, but Oliver gives it back as good as he can, and Jacob laughs every time.

Jacob plans to introduce him to Charles Dickens one day – he mentioned to Oliver that he knows him, which shook Oliver to his core. He made Jacob promise not to introduce them until he has some writing worth showing, which he swears will be any day now. Jacob has complete faith in him.

 They haven’t known each other long yet. They sit and drink tea on the cramped terrace by Oliver’s pokey house. Jacob thinks it’s going to rain, but Oliver is in denial. If it does, Jacob will get the last laugh, but he thinks he might give Oliver his hat to keep the rain off. That would probably be a nice thing to do. Jacob is not a very selfless person, but he thinks he can try and put in a bit of effort. It might be worth it.


End file.
